I've been playing M:tG for about 13 years now, though the only formats I play is Standard competitively, draft/sealed and Commander casually.

I've been a huge fan of Delver decks since they came out, but since Ravnica dropped I've been running with an aggro Rakdos deck, managing to net myself an FNM win over several Azorius detain and Delver variants, and stomping Selesnya decks into the ground. With an ample supply of creature destruction maindecked and Forge Devils sideboarded against Azo the card I fear the most presently is the ever resistant Lotleth Troll. The funnest moments I had in the last few weeks has been a late game Rakdos' Return doubled up with Chandra the Firebrand for a total of 10, as well as responding to a turn 3 Saint Traft with my turn 4 Rakdos, Lord of Riots.

When I'm done having fun with Rakdos I've been considering running an Azo RestoBounce-Detain deck, or a Golgari GraveAbuse with Lotleth, Geralf's and Gravecrawler, or a tempo Izzet deck with Delvers and Guttersnipes.

Anyone played the original Duels of the Planeswalker? I was trying to edit my deck, but apparently you're not allowed to. All the original cards were blacked out, and the unlocked cards could only be moved to a sideboard. What the hell?

That blue card might as well be one of those "You lose the game on your next turn." I cannot imagine a good use for it, unless you've got 30 mana and a bunch of burn spells in your deck. Also, oh god "have ALL the ideas"....

Is it sad I think I prefer the old Borborygmos?

That dragon is cool, but what are the chances you ever get its win condition? And in a block that isn't big on artifacts? Where was that during Scars?

That blue card might as well be one of those "You lose the game on your next turn." I cannot imagine a good use for it, unless you've got 30 mana and a bunch of burn spells in your deck. Also, oh god "have ALL the ideas"....

Is it sad I think I prefer the old Borborygmos?

That dragon is cool, but what are the chances you ever get its win condition? And in a block that isn't big on artifacts? Where was that during Scars?

Omniscience and High Tide are able to use Enter the Infinite in Legacy.

I like Borborygmos, only because I want to put that into some sort of Valakut, now all my forests can be lightning bolts, but still then he is an EDH champion.

The dragon is another good EDH card, then again there are not a whole lot of cards that are not good there. Just steal mana rocks and anyone that had the crazy idea of running tons of artifacts.

After that the cards are what mythics should be, nothing too overpowered, but still good. I can't wait to exploit Aurelia with Cloudshift though, nothing like 3 combat phases in a turn to make someone hate you.

Question: If a card has -1/-1 counter on it, and it then gets +1/+1 counters, does it remove the negative counters, or do they stack on top of each other? For example, a card like Grief Tyrant. If you put +1/+1 counters on it, when it dies, are you losing out on its ability?

MTGSalvation's spoiler page is up, with the dual lands and gates along with the cards Don mentioned:
Question: If a card has -1/-1 counter on it, and it then gets +1/+1 counters, does it remove the negative counters, or do they stack on top of each other? For example, a card like If you put +1/+1 counters on it, when it dies, are you losing out on its ability?

Those counters cancel each other out. Had to cut out link because of low post count.

I guess the existence of this would make sense if I understood the difference between the 7569 different magic playstyles.

Taken from MTGSalvations Wiki the formats are like this.

Vintage - also known as Type 1, is an eternal format that allows for the use of all cards from all sets, save Un-sets and certain cards banned for causing problems in sanctioned tournaments. Additionally, a number of cards are restricted to a maximum of one copy between a player's deck and sideboard due to their power.

Legacy - formerly known as Type 1.5, is an eternal format with a more limited card pool than Vintage. Whereas Vintage only bans "dexterity cards", cards related to ante or subgame cards, Legacy has a considerable number of cards banned solely due to their power. Fast mana is more difficult to generate thereby causing slightly slower games.

Extended - is a rotating format that includes all editions from Shards of Alara onwards. Constructed decks must contain a minimum of sixty cards. There is no maximum deck size; however, you must be able to shuffle your deck with no assistance. If a player wishes to use a sideboard, it must contain exactly fifteen cards.

With the exception of basic land cards (and Relentless Rats), a player's combined deck and sideboard may not contain more than four copies of any individual card, counted by its English card title equivalent.[1]

It was previously also known as Type 1.X.

With the introduction of the Modern format, Extended has been essentially replaced and is no longer supported at competitive play.

Standard - (formerly known as Type 2) is a rotating constructed format that allows for all cards in the newest two story-based blocks and the newest Core Set to be played, save for cards on the Standard Banned List.

Modern - is a constructed format that allows expansion sets and core sets from Eighth Edition forward, save for the Modern ban list. The modern format thus encompasses all cards that have been printed in a set using the modern Card Frame. The format was officially codified on August 12, 2011, when the format of Pro Tour Philadelphia was changed from Extended to Modern.

There are plenty of other formats out there besides those, Two-Headed Giant, Commander, Vanguard, Drafts, Sealed, Pauper, and some others I am probably forgetting.

I like Extended and Modern, given that Ravnica+ has most of the best cards anyway, and most of my cards are that recent. I know Two-Headed Giant and Commander (waiting for Commander to show up in a DOTP game), but Pauper is the one I see more than anything that I don't understand. that, and seeing all the Vanguard specialty cards when I browse random cards in Gatherer.

Gatecrash still doesn't have any new spoilers. Release date is in two months.

Pauper was just a way to have fun without costing a ton of money, the gates in RTR really helped out Pauper since there were close to zero dual lands at common. Basically you can only use common cards. The only problem with it is that there is only about 3 decks total that wreck everything else, usually some sort of Storm combo.

Vanguard, I believe, was the first try at Commander, mostly used in MTGO. Just choose your Vanguard and you have those effects for the entire game, usually starting off with less life or more cards in your starting hand, with some other effect.

Gatecrash is a big set so it's spoilers, officially, start 3 weeks before the set comes out, so we have some time yet. Expect some spoilers a week or two before that on a twitter or facebook or someone else grabbing them like they did the five I showed.

I recently bought a ton of cards for cheap with all of the black friday/cyber monday deals and I like my haul, got to love getting a Vraska for free. I am thinking some sort of Bant control might be in order, but I still need some Restoration Angels and Deathrite Shamans.

This showed up a few days ago on MTGS and it was interesting, if only because it is Dragon's Maze stuff so early.

Some seem a little faked, especially the one that regards proliferate, but I think it is nice to even see someone try so hard to fake something.

So, I've seen and copied the full set list for DGM. Not going to say exactly how this happened, but it involved a visit to WotC, a camera phone, and some papers that *someone* clearly shouldn't have left out. WotC didn't know I'm a player and enthusiast as well as a business contact (and have posted here before, but this username is new... I do want to hide my tracks a bit). I don't think there's much chance I could get in trouble for this, since I don't work directly for WotC.

It is humanly possible that this could change before release, or that the set list I've seen is an early draft.

The set has 156 cards, including 10 mythic rares, 36 rares, 55 uncommons, and 55 commons. It does not have new basic lands. One of the mythics is a very weird and fun planeswalker, Ral Zarek, who is UR, and it has one completely new keyword, although all ten previous guild keywords return.

In case you were wondering what else returns, or what Niv-Mizzet has been hiding, it's the new and upgraded Nephilim. And now there are five, they're legendary, and they use hybrid mana. For your perusal, five of the ten mythics, in a cycle:

Acushla, Terror of the Clans (M)
Legendary Creature – Nephilim
G/W W/U U/B B/R
5/5
Flying
Whenever an opponent explores, you may look at the top three cards of that players library and put any of those cards on the bottom of his or her deck.
2W: CARDNAME gains lifelink until EoT.
2B, T: Destroy target tapped creature.

Davriki, Breaker of the Senate (M)
Legendary Creature – Nephilim
U/B B/R R/G G/W
First Strike
Whenever a spell or ability detains a permanent you control, exile that permanent and then return it to the battlefield. It deals damage equal to its CMC to target creature or player.
2B: Regenerate CARDNAME.
2G, T: All creatures lose flying until EoT.

Gavrill, Light Against the Dark (M)
Legendary Creature – Nephilim
B/R R/G G/W W/U
5/5
Trample
Whenever a spell or ability controlled by your opponent puts a card from your library into your graveyard, you may put that card into your hand.
2R: CARDNAME gains haste and first strike until EoT.
2W, T: You gain 1 life for each card in your graveyard, then shuffle your graveyard into your library.

You'll notice that (like much of the RTR set) this set of mythics has a lot of cyclical elements: each has a static ability, a triggered ability, and two activated abilities, one of which involves tapping. The Nephilim seem generally opposed to one of the five friendly-colored guilds;there is indeed a cycle of multicolor cards (at rare, not mythic, also not legendary, also not all creatures) that is directly opposed to each of the opposite-color guilds.

Here are a few points that make me wonder whether the set list I grabbed (and yes, copied in entirety with my cameraphone) is real, or at least current:

*The Nephilim are effectively tricolor, not four colors, since the hybrid mana means they can be cast with only three colors each. Why not just print them as tricolor cards?

*Some seem wonkily overpowered for 4CC creatures, even with the stringent color requirements.

*The cycle is a tad TOO regular for my taste (I see this in other cycles in DGM on the set list, too): the activation costs, stats, and abilities all line up so evenly. The Nephilim from Guildpact had more variance.

Well, let me know what you think, and I'll start posting more of the set list after the holidays.

Yeah, seems fake. However, "proliferate" could have been confused with "populate". There's not going to be any more proliferate unless it's printed in a core set. I'm pretty sure that's how they do that to block-specific mechanics.

I will say that Ral Zarek as a planeswalker in the set makes sense, since he's only been featured in Duels of the Planeswalker, and lives in Ravnica.

The thread was closed until some actual information can be found out about it. The only reason it would be fake is because the person posting the info hasn't presented any evidence that this is true, although the person said they would post more about it after the holidays, so we will just have to see if it is fake in time.

---------- Post added 2012-12-17 at 01:35 AM ----------

I found this quite interesting from MaRo's blog.

Q: What would be the most interesting vanilla creature design?
A: It’s in a set I’m currently working on.

A lot of people are thinking that this means we are going to Muraganda, which would be awesome, just so we can finally get dinosaurs as a creature type. Old Fogey technically is the only one.

Looks like another golden ticket was found, in the form of a Gatecrash card being in an RTR pack. As you may remember the same thing happened with M13 and RTR.

Anyways, the mechanic was from Great Designer Search 2 that was about two years ago. Seems like a fair mechanic to me.

Overall it is definitely Simic to get +1/+1 counters and ways of making them bigger, plus this creature will probably be a great limited card for combat tricks and making even the most useless creature seem great.